November 20, 2024 • 40 mins
Here's a story...Jennie is living her own Marcia Brady dream! Joined by Chris Knight, aka Peter Brady, Jennie goes down nostalgic memory lane from the actual Brady Bunch house! Grab a snack of pork chops and applesauce because Chris Knight is talking about growing up on the famous family set and sharing the advice he tells all parents wanting to get their kids into show business.
Plus, homeowner Tina details how you can win your way into a Brady brunch!
"I Choose Me" live event - tickets are on sale now!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hi, everyone,
welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about
the choices we make and where they lead us. I
have a really fun episode for you today. Something that
is so great about this podcast is that I get
(00:22):
to take you listeners with me for fun and interesting conversations.
And today I choose to live out one of my
childhood dreams because you guys, I am recording this episode
at the Brady Bunch House. Yes, that's what I said,
The Brady Bunch House. My guest today is known for
(00:42):
playing the beloved Peter Brady and in recent years has
made appearances on shows like The Masked Singer and A
Very Brady Renovation. And outside of acting, he's also an
accomplished entrepreneur. Please welcome Chris Night to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh my goodness, this is such an Are you tripping?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Well, yeah, I tripped here, I'm tripping. Yeah, you'll come
out of it eventually.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
It's now real.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
So it is a trip, but not as as poignant
as it was when we first completed it.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Because we're sitting here in this house that you all
have redone to look exactly like what was the set?
Right of the interior.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Better than the set, as it turns out, because it's real. Now,
this set was a pretend place.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
You know it is really no how I know. I
just went to the bathroom in your parents' bathroom.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
And that added toilet.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
It worked.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, and they work everywhere because essentially it's a real
Allison has to have an occupancy permit.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Okay, well they I occupied.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
It couldn't faithfully replicate that part. No toilets.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
You know why we didn't have a toilet on the
show on the show because you weren't allowed to show
a toilet for nine nine o'clock. There was standards and
practices at the time, and actually that.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Anybody was going to be wanting to use the toilet.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
The toilet, the toilet itself, It wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
There's a tub, there's and there's something missing that's obvious.
Article in every bathroom in all not that there was.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
But one bathroom that was really featured on the show.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Wow, when did that change? Do you think because we
had toilets online? Or you want? Oh, good for you, Yeah,
we really will.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
We're built of different materials.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Back in the sixties, they must have decided that toilets
are okay to show on prime time.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Is someone read through the manual and said, you know,
we've got to update this.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
These are real people.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I don't know, you know, things, times changed things. I mean,
you know, do my podcast on our show. We're watching
the show for the first time in fifty years, and
it innocuous, is the Brady is. There's quite a few
episodes where we'd have to change some.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Of the dialogue.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I want to ask you a question about that. You're
watching the show from the very beginning. Is that something
that you had ever done before? Number have you ever
watched one full episode well when they.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Were first on on Friday nights in primetime. Other than that, no, so.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Kind of avoided it, you know, stumbling through the channels
and there it is. If it's Tevieland or whatnot, I
wouldn't watch it, you know. I don't watch my own work,
you know. And though it's you know, somewhere around forty
years afterward, it was distant enough to be able to
be watched objectively. I'm an adult and there's nothing there
for me, you know, as to consume. I didn't think
(03:37):
but in doing this house in the in the HGTV project,
it became apparent that so many people over the years
have driven down the street and taking photos of this
house that was sort of utilized to become the house,
and that it could much to my surprise. Yeah, it
now gives this tenth character an opportunity to exist in perpetuity.
(04:02):
And Tina, who owns it, has been gracious enough to
allow well, podcasts like this to occur here, limited productions here,
and us access to the house. And it's very comforting
because it really was a special place, and you know,
it's just it's remarkable that it's still that we were
able to do it to this kind of detail, or
(04:23):
that HGTV kept at it so that this detail was
faithfully reproduced.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You said that the tripping would pass, but it hasn't
passed yet.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I'm staring weeks or months. It's a couple of years now.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I'm talking to Peter Brady.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Guys, never left home.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
No, I used to watch your show every day. I
lived on a farm way on the country and Illinois, Illinois,
and I would come home down state upstate central central Illinois. Well,
I would sit right there in front of the big
TV with the wood around it, and.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
I would watch remote controllers. You have to turn you
had to actually get up, don't turn that die.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I sat close enough to turn the dial like this.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Well, of course we all did.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That wasn't bad for my eyes.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Right, I was supposed to, like, you don't watch television
like that because to do something to your teeth. I know,
it's a bunch of a bunch of wives tales, you know,
I think television or rot your brain, you know all.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
That's that's what my mom always said.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, they were born in the same era.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I think I connected with this show on such a
deep level because I was from a blended family, were you?
And if I'm not mistaken, I think The Brady Bunch
was one of the first shows, at least to my recollection,
that ever really spotlighted a blended family on television.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Purposefully so because if you look at Sherwood, Sherwood had
two shows that are.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You know, wildly popular, Gillian's Island in The Brady Bunch.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
He had a third that only lasted thirteen weeks. But
oddly I can still remember the theme song from which
is one of the things that Sherwood is very famous for.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Theme songs. You can't forget, and that was it's about.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Time, It's about time, it's about it's not in the
human race, And all three are the same premise, and
that is disparate people learning to get along, forced to
get along.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So on Gilligan's Island, they were forced because they were
stuck on the island.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
And it's about time, it's about space less only two
astronauts stuck in space. I don't know how that would
have lasted over years, but okay, being forced to get
along in a very small space. And then the Brady's
is this idea of new family being zippered together and
now watching it and getting caught up to where the
audience has.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Been with it.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
It's clear what you know, the vision that Surewood had
on the show in those first two seasons, but those
you know, first twenty thirty shows are about a family
that is coming together and not easily being having but
then learning the benefits of getting along. And then by
(06:55):
the second or third year there's you know, there's never
any mention of you're not my sister ever, which probably
isn't real, but getting to that place is so important
because that really then is the family. When when when
It doesn't matter where.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
You're from, that you are my sister.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It was his and hers and it became ours.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Well, there was a movie like that, His Heres and Hours,
His mine and ours.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, I was my My family was his hers, and
I was the Hours. So basically I was Tiger in
your family?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Were you part of Were you not the blend? Were
you the the the biological child was the blend?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
You were the biological child of the two that had
his and hers, So they came together and then they.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Had so you were the Yeah, you're the next evolution
of what we were. You would have been Oliver born
to Carolyn.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Forgot about all.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
That's a whole flip on that because he wasn't.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
So he's the inside out version of you.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
He's the cousin though.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
The cousin that wasn't even part of wasn't even on
the radar screen.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yeah, I mean a cherub found on the street.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I think that that's what's so cool, because I know,
being on a show in the nineties, your show really
represented the seventies, and being on a show that represented
the nineties, you're sort of forever frozen in people's minds
as a certain image, you know, like, I'm sure people
look at you and stare at you the way I'm
steering at you right now with that look of like
(08:33):
I can't believe what I'm seeing. And I know, people
it's weird. I'm tripping out because I'm I'm experiencing it.
I'm doing it to you, but I've experienced.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
It as you, so you're doing it to me, but
seeing yourself do it to me.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yes, that's deep.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yeah, yeah, I feel like I should have a doctorate
psychology to.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Be here, right.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
But how does that? I mean, I know how I've
dealt with it over the years, and what a role
my show and the significance of my show played in
my life. What would what is the significance that the
Brady Bunch played in your life? Like overall, would you
say pretty significant?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I mean, it's pretty much unlike your show's where you
sort of became an adult, a young adult before the
intersection of that celebrity, we were kids. I mean those
formatal years you were ten, tended to the pilot just
just about eleven, and then eleven twelve in the first season,
(09:35):
but then ended at sixteen, so you know, kind of
all that kind.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Of childhood years.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yes, yeah, so you're forming yourself. You know, you're forming
an idea self.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Do you think it's a realistic when you're in that bubble,
do you think that who you're forming is a realistic Well?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I think in my case it was very helpful because
it wasn't it offered exactly what the show people watching it,
But for me it was in three D.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
It was around me.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I mean it was more than just assumed through the script.
It was lived in this environment. It's a really wholesome environment.
And I do laugh at it because it's not exactly
I wouldn't if I had kids, I would try to
keep them away from show business until the're eighteen. I
don't think there's any success of consequence to anybody in
this industry, you know, as a child, that will help
(10:26):
as an adult, and the chances of you falling apart
in the process making that leap.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Let me do it.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Either way, you successful as a kid, being successful as
an adult, you know, is difficult because you're going to
have to it's a whole different person then, and no
success leaves you then with what.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
So either way you're kind of setting yourself up.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And isn't that your parents' job to work, not you,
because having a childhood.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Is why did you work as a child.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Well, because my dad was an actor and he had
access to getting us agents, and my brother who's a
year older, thirteen months older, we got an agent at
the same time. I was seven, he was eight. I
immediately started working, much to my mom's surprise, because she
thought he was the outgoing one.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I was the interviewed one.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
He had no idea what went on inside that room, right,
because moms don't go in the room with you when
you're going on your interview, and we didn't go in together.
You know, we were just so close in age that
we would be up for the same commercial together. I
got the first interview, at the third interview and just
kept working and.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
He never did.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
And she thought he would be the one working because
of her relationship, you know, with him and his outgoingness
in my quiet, you know, reserved sort of so and
self wasn't anything she thought would sell inside of a room,
and so she was quite surprised.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
I didn't learn about that until I was an adult.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
What was your secret? What'd you do in that room?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I mean, I think what I did is I is
I lit up because in my environment it was hard
to even you know, take a breath. And so this
is what the Brady's provided, you know, the stuff that
I wasn't getting.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Similarly, in that room, I.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Was getting stuff I wasn't getting because of the environment.
I had an older brother, you know, pecking order being
what it was. Who you know, he even laughs at it.
I was literally trying to kill me when we were
one and two and and and I guess it's not
unusual or impossible when when you live in a in
(12:31):
an environment that is chaotic and and and not not abundant,
when survival is palpable.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
You know, my dad even said.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
To me at one point, or told my mom when
because he's an actor, an unemployed actor raising two kids
in New York City, it was like, you know, there's
not a we don't have enough milk to feed the kids,
he said, feed him every other day.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
His environment from the old world. I mean, it's like
not all, not all your kids lived. That was his.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Mindset might be. You know, he had a brother, didn't
that that didn't make it. You know, it's like a
lot of it's really a jungle law. You know, a
lot of the Fittest Survival of Fittest.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
And so Brady's is not that.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Brady's probably was an extension again of that interview, which
is if somebody's asking me my uh, asking me questions,
asking me about something that doesn't.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Happen at home.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
At home, it's that you talk to and you know
you're just in the way, and and so you kind
of receid. You know, you don't want to buck that.
So been an interview all of a sudden you can
come out. So that's probably where that began. And then
here I really felt it. I mean, I remember one
episode Bob redirected and we were very inexpensive show, and
(13:53):
you got six of us, and so we got a
director coming in.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
He's going to do.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
This scene with six of us, and you know, maybe
seven eight of us in the scene. So you three
stand there, you come up, you stand here, and we'll
do the scene like the static. So nothing organic about it.
But he's trying to get done by the end of
the day, and how else are you going to block
this thing?
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And then here's Bob read first thing in the morning.
It's a show that you know, I'm featured in and
he says, so, how do you see this blocking work?
How do you see this work? And it was like, wow,
I'm valued.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I have an idea, but no one's ever asked me
my idea to that degree before. And that's where that developed,
you know, And that probably wouldn't have happened at home
until I did it for myself at some in some
rebellious kind of way, and so it shaped me.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
It shaped me, and it gave me an idea of
how family can be cooperative.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
My mom was dead set against even believing that families could.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Be really Yeah, so it sounds like, much like myself,
you found the Brady Bunch sort of like a safe space,
a sanctuary.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, And I didn't know how safe it wasn't until
you know, it was gone.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And then when I was an adult.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
At that point, I was sixteen, but I realized that
the space that I was left in at like at home,
it's like, I need to escape this so that I
can go make something closer to that for myself.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
That's that's a really interesting story.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
It's like, and my mom and I we'd have I mean,
it wasn't like we were close friends when she passed away,
but because we discussed it all. You know that she
had different ideas based on her experiences in life and
the hardships that she was under and the you know,
the difficulties that were day to day confronting her.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
And she did the best that she could.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
But the result of that was these reverberations were you know,
a need to create something different.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Did your mom go to work with you?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah? Since you were, she gave me every day. And
I mean, I have a brother seven years younger. I'm eleven.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Did he come who was? No?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
He's left home with my sister who's three years younger.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
So it's like, you know, she's he's been raised by
a seven year old.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Yeah, And I you know, I didn't get to witness that,
but you know, talking to my sister and you know,
you know, that's tough. And that's why when when friends say, oh,
my kid is so cute, he should be in show business,
And I said, do you realize what would happen if, like, say,
they live in Ohio and they want to come out
for pilot season again, a pilot they you know, you're.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Successful, What about the other kids? Where are you going
to live? What do you do to the family, and.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
You shouldn't me work for you know, and support your
kids and then let them do what they want.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
At eighteen.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I became emancipated when I started working. I think I
was sixteen.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
So you can't get a massipated earlier than that, right,
I think sixteen is when you first can be it.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
I believe so. And so you could drive, I could drive.
I drove myself. I went to work just like an adult,
like I didn't have my mom.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Barry got himself emancipated because for a time my mom
would be on set and his mom wouldn't, and she
would be his guardian for that day until he got emancipated.
His mom was there mostly in the first year. I
think that was the second year, because he didn't really
need or want his mom around, but he legally was
needed to have someone there looking, an adult looking after
(17:26):
him and.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Till that happened.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Did they sequester the parents away from the set.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Oh no, They were very much part of the entire program,
because True's idea was that we first he wanted you know,
I don't know how much he actually took in to
account parents when he was casting us, but I'm sure
he had some I out for that. He didn't want actors.
(17:54):
He wanted kids to kid act. So he wanted kids,
he wanted he wanted people that they were people first,
person persons first before actors. And I'm sure part of
that process and looking for that was not just what
he got from the interview in the room, but somewhere
(18:15):
along the way there must have been. But it is
tough because you're not interviewing parents, right, So how do
you know what you're getting with the parents?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Are like, So, yeah, that's a tough question. I've really
not thought about it.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
He couldn't have known too much about how the parents
worked out, and luckily it worked out. You know, we
had distinctly different kind of parents like Marine's. She lived
not too far away, but her mom couldn't drive. Her
dad was a school teacher, so and she was the youngest.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
In her family. Her brother's rolders.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
She had one brother whose special needs mom had some
eye condition tunnel vision or something.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
So you couldn't drive, We drove. We drove them.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I mean that gave me an extra couple hours every
day to be like a quasi brother some Marine growing
up in the back of a car.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
But it worked. I mean, the parents weren't the typical
None of them were the typical set parents.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Set parents, or you know, pushy kind of like this.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Was also at the stage was it was an ensemble.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Now we're at times it would just it would show
itself in defense of those things that were important to
that person, like Eve's hair. She had this incredibly long,
gorgeous hair, but to keep it like that required a
lot of brushing. Mom was constantly brushing and brushing because
it wasn't I mean again, light lightly budgeted. Wasn't like
(19:35):
we had an abundance of hair and makeup people so
that they were probably you know, giving it a couple
couple of strokes before taking care of Florence.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
It was. It was.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
It was Eve's mom constantly on her brushing right up
until right.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I have just such a vivid imagination of what that
was like. But you did, her hair looked amazing. But
that's why now we.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Know takes a lot of brushing. Well, thank god for
mom's right.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
So stage momming is important to some extent.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, So do you feel as if you're frozen in
time when you walk around.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Today or have a lot of us to reconcile this.
You know they say about electrons, they don't really have
a place. They can be in two places at once. Yeah,
and that is kind of what happens when this occurs.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Right, we did something long ago, it still exists, it
still lives, and then I exist now, So I have
two existences.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I'm not really frozen in time, but I understand that
somebody could see me frozen at time. That's what's fun
about doing the podcast is I go back and learn
what people have thought about me and why by watching
the show.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
You know and.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I'm amazed were both are about how much we were
gaining from watching.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
It, Right, isn't that the case?
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Yeah, that we always get the same question, right, what
is your favorite show? But it dawned on me that
wasn't a question. We were answering it without regarding the
question as it was being asked. We always said why
because we have to go to why that would be
our favorite experience, not necessarily favorite show. So all of
our answers are about the experiences of doing a show. Well,
(21:16):
I mean, I'm thinking going in that my favorite shows
were those when I was older, right, because that's when
all of a sudden you're more conscious making conscious decisions,
and I watched the show. The shows are not nearly
as good as the first couple of years because the
show had a structure in those first couple of years
that kind of untethered as the show as we got older,
(21:38):
because it's power early, if you will. Its real strength
was in that you know, six to twelve, fourteen year
old kid realm. As soon as you get fifteen sixteen,
your issues are not as simple to conclude as they
are or as they can be. They're not as primary
(22:00):
like the colors on the show. The issues that we
dealt with best were very primary issues. I'm you know,
getting along, telling the truth, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Just it's it's a parable, modern parable.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
But so simple like for those of us watching it.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yes, well life for a kids should be simple. It
gets more complicated out that front door. Oh yes, so
the more reasons you know, like you don't, I mean,
if there's if there's like Vietnam was it was in parallel,
you know, I was like a year from being drafted
doing the show, and so there was all that you know,
(22:35):
tumult you know around us, and we're doing the show
already felt like it was out of time.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
And if you think about it.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
The Brady's as this kind of family was already a
throwback in the late sixties to the families of the
late you know, reminds me of leave It to Beaver,
you know, as you know, a blended leave it to
Beaver like family, and that was late fifties, you know,
and really hasn't been done.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
And I don't know if you can.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
I mean I think that they're like, I don't know
you can cycle back to that kind of that kind
of innocence again.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
You will just laugh at it.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
And that's why the movies laughed at it, because it's
like when you're an adult looking back at yourself as
a child in the ways that you thought, you laugh
at how simple things were for you, but they're purposefully simple,
like you know, the the you know, if you're ten
years old or eleven years old, I'm not sure your
parents want you watching the news of the war that's
going on, you know, and the and the body count
(23:29):
and stuff like that. Keep you in a different space
because you'll have enough time to deal with that as
you get older.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
That's the thing with kids these days now, you can't
keep them from seeing everything all at once everywhere.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Which is troublesome. Yeah, I don't know how you know. Yeah,
everything all at once is not necessarily not.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
I did well to just take my Brady Bunch, followed
by my Happy Days and then my Laverne and Shirley.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You did it naturally for yourself, yes.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yes, Well did you when you left the show? When
the show was over, how did you feel like? Did
you feel.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Well?
Speaker 4 (24:08):
I was.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Happy, at least initially, because I wanted to go to school.
I wasn't my idea.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
To be an actor, though I was getting so much
from it and very much appreciated it. I hadn't decided
on what I wanted to do with my life.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And I knew that you're only sixteen right when it
went off.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I was, yeah, halfway through eleventh grade, so I was
just turning yet seventeen. Just about seventeen, I was sixteen.
You're right, I was sixteen, but high school was only
I only had a year and a half left of
high school.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I hadn't gone to my real high school yet.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
We went to a private school tenth grade so we
could do the singing, dancing, concert stuff that I didn't
really want to do.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
But I'm part of this group and being sucked along
by it.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
And so now the show's going off, and I'm it's
like the twentieth week in going up to the second
semester of eleventh grade, and finally I get to go
to the high school that's right down the street, and
the friends in the neighborhood they go there, and I
hadn't gone yet. Brother goes there. I was big into science,
but there was no science of being taught laps.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
You know, biology and chemistry and physics.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
All the stuff that interested me were stuff that I
couldn't get unless I went back to my high school.
And luckily I got just I got out just in
time to start catching.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Up on someone else.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Did anybody ever pick on you?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Well, that happened, Well, I was. I to seventh grade
is a new school. The first season the show was.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Out, you were still in school, Rul I went.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
The only year was tenth grade when we went to private.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
I went. Every we finished.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
We start the day the monday that school got out,
and we were all in public schools.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
We were on the same system. So they did that
money that.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
They could keep so they didn't have to work you certainly.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Now and work they could work us seven hours right,
they could work us well, let's eight hours seven as
opposed to just you know four, right, because once the
school starts. On that day that the school begun, we
were in our classroom when we weren't you around the
camera or in front of the cameras. Matter of fact,
they had to invent rules, like you know, putting us
(26:12):
into school and taking us out five minutes later is
useless for school, so you have to leave us there
for at least I think it was fifteen minutes or
twenty minutes.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
And then because.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
We'd be featured, our welfare worker was just brilliant, classic
school marmish, wonderful woman, Francis Whitfield. And she was our
welfare worker and our teacher. She was accredited up through
eighth grade, so there was another teacher for us when
we got beyond eighth grade.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I want to know, like when you go out in
public and people stop you, as I'm sure they do
a million times, what goes through your.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Mind depends on what just happened, like what their interrupt
because sometimes I have no hope for humanity, like where
you have that right though, I'm with my brother who
we've always had, Like I said, a relationship that's on an.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Edge, a little competitive, right, and he.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Oh, I never never closed on that. So we go
on these same interurgers for two years and I can
he never worked.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Oh, that must have really never worked.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And then finally said, why am I wasting my time?
Living in Woodland Hills. You had to drive into house.
I mean that's like an hour two hours, you know,
and it's like, why am I going on this? I
don't want to go anywhere.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
So he didn't have to at that point, I'm now
doing you know, by that point, just about doing the
Brady button.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Okay. So you're at lunch with your brother now as
grown man, and someone comes up to you and says.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Well, this is this is the thing about humanity my
brother and I. So somebody recognizes me. This is some
years ago, ten years ago, and then turns in are
you somebody?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
And it's like, I don't even want to look him
in the eye right now. I didn't do it. It's
not my fault. I'm not I'm not going to you know, And.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
It's like, hey, you know, what do you say to
this person?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
You know? And what do you say to your brother?
Speaker 3 (28:03):
You're not gonna say any of your brother because hopefully,
you know, he'll.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
You know, handle it.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, And it's just like I'm not But I knew
at a young age too. Why are people asking for autographs?
What are they gonna do with that?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
They're gonna he's gonna draw and it's gonna disappear forever
and there it's a handshake. It's their way of interacting
before cell phones, it was.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
It's a way up. But they don't know that.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
They're wanting to just say you've intersected my life positively,
or I liked your work.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Can I can I just say hi, thank you?
Speaker 3 (28:41):
It takes a real adult to do that, but until
not everybody ever gets to be a real adult to
handle it that way. So mostly it's just doing what
somebody else has done, which is asking for an autograph.
But you know, it's really just to interact. When I
figured that out self, want to make it so much better.
Just take the selfie because now I'm a life size collectible.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
It doesn't bug you. You're a life size collectible.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
I love that, And it's so much easier. I don't
sit down and write terrible handwriting, you know, and what's
your name?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
And how do I spell?
Speaker 1 (29:13):
That it's like it seems though, that you have such
a deep appreciation for the show and its significance in
television history and in so many people's lives.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I know this.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
I know I had a really contentious relationship with my
mom growing up that predated The Brady Bunch, and you know,
and we worked that out as adults, so we had
we had little problem as adults. We were a family
that shared exactly how we were feeling, which has a
good side and it can have a bad side. Chaotic
(29:47):
and independent, uh, can be desperate, loud. Yeah, So that
relationship wasn't something I thought was healthy, but I felt
what whatever we were doing here was it was a
depiction of it and it set me up to realize that,
(30:08):
you know, there are good things that can come from this.
Although we were derided in the press, I mean, as
a show reviewed, we're banw and you know, just.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Because that's what we were.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
There wasn't anybody reviewing from the point of view that
the show was trying to deliver on because there was
no children's programming per se. I mean, there was Disney,
but people didn't look at if Disney wasn't really trying
to provide entertainment for children at that but there wasn't.
They didn't review children's programming separately. Then you reviewed any
(30:40):
other kind of art, and with the same reviewer. It'd
be doing theater and doing television, and so we were
kind of like, what the hell is this doing on television?
Speaker 2 (30:47):
This is you know, television itself was derided as being
a entertainment below art, art.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Form below keyword. So later in life you pivoted to
business entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I pivoted right in high school.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
When I left and went into high school, it was like,
that's this is it, you know, because I was happy,
you know, just I got my I was getting my sciences,
and I'm now going to figure out what i want.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
To do with the rest of my life. And I
didn't know that I had a learning disable.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I was learning disabled, you know, kind of got buried
in all that other stuff they had. This dyslexia and
I had would turn out to be add but I
had a real difficult time with the subjects I didn't
care about, you know, And I then went off to
UCLA and realized that I was going to get buried.
I had no problem in any of the sciences, but
as soon as I went into litt in English and
(31:39):
then asked.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I was going to get buried, and it's like, how
am I going to finish this?
Speaker 4 (31:41):
And that?
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Right at that same time, here comes the entertainment industry
back asking me to do something I don't want to do,
which is music.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
But I said yes to it, and that was.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
The Variety Show because I realized as well, half my
friends at UCLA we're North campus, you know, studying theater
and cinema, and it's like I'm and I'm just dropping that,
and whatever whatever advantage I had in that industry, I'm
just disregarding as perhaps I need to leverage that, maybe
I need to look at that again. So I use
(32:10):
that as the entree to get back into it, and
that would last for a number of years, and then
I found myself just drifting into into the realm of
computers when you know.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Just naturally just got.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Attracted to him and ended up in a career in
the computer industry for twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
So when the cast came back together to do the
renovation show for the house on HDTV, how was that?
Would you? Was that a good?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah? Well, well look at it was come.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Back together the gang was back together.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
It was just odd the way that it all came We,
like everybody Lancepass included, read that the house was for sale,
it was in the USA today, and then a few
days later, agents are getting contacted about this house that
HGTV or Discovery body.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I wanted to know if we could meet with them.
It's like, okay, we had no idea really what this
was about.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
What it was for them to tell us that they
had bought the house and that they were looking at
doing something with it, and then we told them about.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
The history of the house and they didn't even know.
They had no idea.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
It was just because it came up on the market
and somebody was reading it during a production meeting or
some development meeting. We should buy the Brainy House, and
then somebody said, yeah, we should, And within two days.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
They're making it off our house. They didn't know it's
the fiftieth anniversary. It all came to just kind of
came together.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
It's like, well, that's a present to us, you know,
if they're going to have us involved, I don't know
what it's going to be, but hey, you know, making
that doing something at the house is like a way
to acknowledge the.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Fiftieth anniversary, and it turned out to be much.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
More than that, and in a way to you know,
resurrect this eleventh cast member.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Right, I love that. Well, speaking of the eleventh cast member,
we've got to bring in Dina Treyhan, who is the
owner of this beautiful, iconic home.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
How are you?
Speaker 4 (34:00):
I'm well? Thank you? How are you?
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I'm good? I need to know why you bought this house.
Were you a fan of the show?
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Well, I watched it every day after school, yes, growing up.
So when I heard the house was for sale, I
just knew I had to buy it. I did not
know why. I knew I wanted nothing to happen to it.
I didn't want it to get torn down or anything
like that. What I didn't know is what I was
going to do with it.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
HGTV.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
I bought it from them, so they had already done
the addition and made it just like the show. So
what I did, I just added a bunch of things.
I've added over three hundred things I've lost count from
the show, like Kitty carry all.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I saw her upstairs, she's sleeping.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Right, and the cars, and you know, so I did
I did a lot that way, and I turned the
garage into the car port just like they had without
a permit. So I got a violation.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Oh no, that didn't make the news good.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
So what Tina has would to all of us. Obviously,
it's a museum, it's a you can't make it.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
No.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
First of all, I heard a rumor that you have
slept in this home. Have you slept over?
Speaker 4 (35:12):
I have a few of my friends have come out
to LA and they wanted to sleep in the house.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Whose room did you sleep?
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Well? They slept in Carol and Mike's and I slept
in the girls room.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Can I have a sleepover with you?
Speaker 4 (35:26):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Amy, and I will be right over You. Guys are
having a really incredible event here, so can you tell
me about that.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
Yes, we partnered with No Kid Hungry and we're doing
a sweepstakes where five people and they each get to
bring a guest get round trip airfare, hotels, ground transportation
and meals. And but what's going on at the house.
It's we're calling it the Brady Brunch, So you have
brunch with Brady cast members. And yes, we are serving
(35:56):
also pork chops and apple sauce.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Wi.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Yeah, buy someone dressed like Alice.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Oh my gosh, are you going to be here?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
I didn't know about the Alice part. I yes, I
plan to be here.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
So we don't know the date that it's going to be,
but it's based on professional availability. I will work, however,
I as hard as I can to make certain that
I am one of those. I am local so I
don't have to be flown out. I know that Barry
has shown interest in Ev has shown interest in Mike
has shown interest, and whether or not they can be
here on the date that is selected will have to
(36:29):
be determined.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
But they'll be a Brady.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Here, a Brady at least you at least.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Okay, that's enough for me.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Well, and I'll take I'll bring my version of Tiger.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Before I let both of you go, I'd like to
ask you both, what was your last I choose me moment?
What was the last time you choose yourself?
Speaker 2 (36:49):
It's endless.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
I choose me all the time. I think more important
for me is my first I choose me. And that's
when we were doing the singing and dancing. We were
literally doing concerts for our albums, and I hated it
and I couldn't sink, and I thought we shouldn't be
doing it, or this one shouldn't be doing it. And
I'm my mom was like the business manager of the
(37:12):
be She was kind of the the she put it together,
It's like.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
You and I'm not doing I got no.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Musical I should be kept as far away from a
microphone as possible.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
And I just covetched a lot.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
And she finally said, well, if you don't want to
do it, you should quit.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I go, I will so well. You got to write
a letter of raggedy. I wrote two sentences. I quit.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
And that was the beginning of me doing things for
me because I didn't this industry. You end up getting
caught up and doing stuff that others make me feel
you have to do. And I realized, no, no, if
you're gonna you got to.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Do what's right for you.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I love that so much.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
That was it. That was at seven sixteen.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
That's so early. That's great. Good for you. So, Tina,
what was your last I Choose me moment?
Speaker 4 (38:02):
My last I choose me moment was when I bought
this house because so many people were like, what are
you going to do with it? Why are you buying
the house? And some days I did question, wait, why
am I buying the house? But I chose me, and
I bought the house.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
And didn't you get a response recently from somebody who
saw that you were running the sweepstakes and they had
something positive to say to you. Some member of the family.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Yes, oh my gosh, yes, my daughter's father, his mother.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
That's getting your ex mother in law.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Yes, yes, yes, sorry, she was one of the people
that thought I was nuts.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
As the mother in law did exactly.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
So after she saw the Today Show, she sent me
and I have two very nice text messages that said,
oh my gosh, I thought you were nuts, and now
I see all the good you're doing because we've done
other charity things here at the house. So she was
proud of me, she said, was a big deal.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
You chose you in buying the house, but really it
was a choice for other people too. Yes, how do
people get in on this sweepstakes?
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Oh so you enter at the Brady Experience dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Okay, you heard it, hear people straight from the Brady House.
You can come here too. Thank you for being You
can have your own just like it. It is a
trip that was fun, getting to live out one of
my childhood dreams today, Oh my gosh. I want to
thank Chris and Tina for being a part of it,
(39:34):
and we'll be sure to put all of the info
in our show notes for how to enter that incredible
brunch they are hosting. I think I'm going to enter myself.
As we continue to choose ourselves each week, I want
to encourage you this week to tap into your own
childhood feel good memories. What did you love as a kid,
A certain kind of food or a song, a type
(39:57):
of music, a specific board game. There are things from
our childhoods that still bring us joy to this day
as adults, and sometimes it's fun to act like a kid.
So this week, take some time to relive your own
childhood memories for a little bit and see how much
fun you have doing it. Thanks for listening to I
Choose Me. You can check out all of our social
(40:18):
links in our show notes. Make sure to rate and
review the podcast, and use the hashtag I Choose Me
anytime you feel like it. I'll be right here next week.
I hope you choose to be here too.
You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hi, everyone,
welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about
the choices we make and where they lead us. I
have a really fun episode for you today. Something that
is so great about this podcast is that I get
(00:22):
to take you listeners with me for fun and interesting conversations.
And today I choose to live out one of my
childhood dreams because you guys, I am recording this episode
at the Brady Bunch House. Yes, that's what I said,
The Brady Bunch House. My guest today is known for
(00:42):
playing the beloved Peter Brady and in recent years has
made appearances on shows like The Masked Singer and A
Very Brady Renovation. And outside of acting, he's also an
accomplished entrepreneur. Please welcome Chris Night to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh my goodness, this is such an Are you tripping?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Well, yeah, I tripped here, I'm tripping. Yeah, you'll come
out of it eventually.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
It's now real.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
So it is a trip, but not as as poignant
as it was when we first completed it.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Because we're sitting here in this house that you all
have redone to look exactly like what was the set?
Right of the interior.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Better than the set, as it turns out, because it's real. Now,
this set was a pretend place.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
You know it is really no how I know. I
just went to the bathroom in your parents' bathroom.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
And that added toilet.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
It worked.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, and they work everywhere because essentially it's a real
Allison has to have an occupancy permit.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Okay, well they I occupied.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
It couldn't faithfully replicate that part. No toilets.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
You know why we didn't have a toilet on the
show on the show because you weren't allowed to show
a toilet for nine nine o'clock. There was standards and
practices at the time, and actually that.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Anybody was going to be wanting to use the toilet.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
The toilet, the toilet itself, It wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
There's a tub, there's and there's something missing that's obvious.
Article in every bathroom in all not that there was.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
But one bathroom that was really featured on the show.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Wow, when did that change? Do you think because we
had toilets online? Or you want? Oh, good for you, Yeah,
we really will.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
We're built of different materials.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Back in the sixties, they must have decided that toilets
are okay to show on prime time.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Is someone read through the manual and said, you know,
we've got to update this.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
These are real people.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I don't know, you know, things, times changed things. I mean,
you know, do my podcast on our show. We're watching
the show for the first time in fifty years, and
it innocuous, is the Brady is. There's quite a few
episodes where we'd have to change some.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Of the dialogue.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I want to ask you a question about that. You're
watching the show from the very beginning. Is that something
that you had ever done before? Number have you ever
watched one full episode well when they.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Were first on on Friday nights in primetime. Other than that, no, so.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Kind of avoided it, you know, stumbling through the channels
and there it is. If it's Tevieland or whatnot, I
wouldn't watch it, you know. I don't watch my own work,
you know. And though it's you know, somewhere around forty
years afterward, it was distant enough to be able to
be watched objectively. I'm an adult and there's nothing there
for me, you know, as to consume. I didn't think
(03:37):
but in doing this house in the in the HGTV project,
it became apparent that so many people over the years
have driven down the street and taking photos of this
house that was sort of utilized to become the house,
and that it could much to my surprise. Yeah, it
now gives this tenth character an opportunity to exist in perpetuity.
(04:02):
And Tina, who owns it, has been gracious enough to
allow well, podcasts like this to occur here, limited productions here,
and us access to the house. And it's very comforting
because it really was a special place, and you know,
it's just it's remarkable that it's still that we were
able to do it to this kind of detail, or
(04:23):
that HGTV kept at it so that this detail was
faithfully reproduced.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
You said that the tripping would pass, but it hasn't
passed yet.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I'm staring weeks or months. It's a couple of years now.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I'm talking to Peter Brady.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Guys, never left home.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
No, I used to watch your show every day. I
lived on a farm way on the country and Illinois, Illinois,
and I would come home down state upstate central central Illinois. Well,
I would sit right there in front of the big
TV with the wood around it, and.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
I would watch remote controllers. You have to turn you
had to actually get up, don't turn that die.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I sat close enough to turn the dial like this.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Well, of course we all did.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That wasn't bad for my eyes.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Right, I was supposed to, like, you don't watch television
like that because to do something to your teeth. I know,
it's a bunch of a bunch of wives tales, you know,
I think television or rot your brain, you know all.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
That's that's what my mom always said.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, they were born in the same era.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I think I connected with this show on such a
deep level because I was from a blended family, were you?
And if I'm not mistaken, I think The Brady Bunch
was one of the first shows, at least to my recollection,
that ever really spotlighted a blended family on television.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Purposefully so because if you look at Sherwood, Sherwood had
two shows that are.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You know, wildly popular, Gillian's Island in The Brady Bunch.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
He had a third that only lasted thirteen weeks. But
oddly I can still remember the theme song from which
is one of the things that Sherwood is very famous for.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Theme songs. You can't forget, and that was it's about.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Time, It's about time, it's about it's not in the
human race, And all three are the same premise, and
that is disparate people learning to get along, forced to
get along.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So on Gilligan's Island, they were forced because they were
stuck on the island.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
And it's about time, it's about space less only two
astronauts stuck in space. I don't know how that would
have lasted over years, but okay, being forced to get
along in a very small space. And then the Brady's
is this idea of new family being zippered together and
now watching it and getting caught up to where the
audience has.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Been with it.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
It's clear what you know, the vision that Surewood had
on the show in those first two seasons, but those
you know, first twenty thirty shows are about a family
that is coming together and not easily being having but
then learning the benefits of getting along. And then by
(06:55):
the second or third year there's you know, there's never
any mention of you're not my sister ever, which probably
isn't real, but getting to that place is so important
because that really then is the family. When when when
It doesn't matter where.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
You're from, that you are my sister.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It was his and hers and it became ours.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Well, there was a movie like that, His Heres and Hours,
His mine and ours.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, I was my My family was his hers, and
I was the Hours. So basically I was Tiger in
your family?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Were you part of Were you not the blend? Were
you the the the biological child was the blend?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
You were the biological child of the two that had
his and hers, So they came together and then they.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Had so you were the Yeah, you're the next evolution
of what we were. You would have been Oliver born
to Carolyn.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Forgot about all.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
That's a whole flip on that because he wasn't.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
So he's the inside out version of you.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
He's the cousin though.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
The cousin that wasn't even part of wasn't even on
the radar screen.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yeah, I mean a cherub found on the street.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I think that that's what's so cool, because I know,
being on a show in the nineties, your show really
represented the seventies, and being on a show that represented
the nineties, you're sort of forever frozen in people's minds
as a certain image, you know, like, I'm sure people
look at you and stare at you the way I'm
steering at you right now with that look of like
(08:33):
I can't believe what I'm seeing. And I know, people
it's weird. I'm tripping out because I'm I'm experiencing it.
I'm doing it to you, but I've experienced.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
It as you, so you're doing it to me, but
seeing yourself do it to me.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yes, that's deep.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yeah, yeah, I feel like I should have a doctorate
psychology to.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Be here, right.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
But how does that? I mean, I know how I've
dealt with it over the years, and what a role
my show and the significance of my show played in
my life. What would what is the significance that the
Brady Bunch played in your life? Like overall, would you
say pretty significant?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I mean, it's pretty much unlike your show's where you
sort of became an adult, a young adult before the
intersection of that celebrity, we were kids. I mean those
formatal years you were ten, tended to the pilot just
just about eleven, and then eleven twelve in the first season,
(09:35):
but then ended at sixteen, so you know, kind of
all that kind.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Of childhood years.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yes, yeah, so you're forming yourself. You know, you're forming
an idea self.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Do you think it's a realistic when you're in that bubble,
do you think that who you're forming is a realistic Well?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I think in my case it was very helpful because
it wasn't it offered exactly what the show people watching it,
But for me it was in three D.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
It was around me.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I mean it was more than just assumed through the script.
It was lived in this environment. It's a really wholesome environment.
And I do laugh at it because it's not exactly
I wouldn't if I had kids, I would try to
keep them away from show business until the're eighteen. I
don't think there's any success of consequence to anybody in
this industry, you know, as a child, that will help
(10:26):
as an adult, and the chances of you falling apart
in the process making that leap.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Let me do it.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Either way, you successful as a kid, being successful as
an adult, you know, is difficult because you're going to
have to it's a whole different person then, and no
success leaves you then with what.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
So either way you're kind of setting yourself up.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And isn't that your parents' job to work, not you,
because having a childhood.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Is why did you work as a child.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Well, because my dad was an actor and he had
access to getting us agents, and my brother who's a
year older, thirteen months older, we got an agent at
the same time. I was seven, he was eight. I
immediately started working, much to my mom's surprise, because she
thought he was the outgoing one.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I was the interviewed one.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
He had no idea what went on inside that room, right,
because moms don't go in the room with you when
you're going on your interview, and we didn't go in together.
You know, we were just so close in age that
we would be up for the same commercial together. I
got the first interview, at the third interview and just
kept working and.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
He never did.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
And she thought he would be the one working because
of her relationship, you know, with him and his outgoingness
in my quiet, you know, reserved sort of so and
self wasn't anything she thought would sell inside of a room,
and so she was quite surprised.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
I didn't learn about that until I was an adult.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
What was your secret? What'd you do in that room?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I mean, I think what I did is I is
I lit up because in my environment it was hard
to even you know, take a breath. And so this
is what the Brady's provided, you know, the stuff that
I wasn't getting.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Similarly, in that room, I.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Was getting stuff I wasn't getting because of the environment.
I had an older brother, you know, pecking order being
what it was. Who you know, he even laughs at it.
I was literally trying to kill me when we were
one and two and and and I guess it's not
unusual or impossible when when you live in a in
(12:31):
an environment that is chaotic and and and not not abundant,
when survival is palpable.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
You know, my dad even said.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
To me at one point, or told my mom when
because he's an actor, an unemployed actor raising two kids
in New York City, it was like, you know, there's
not a we don't have enough milk to feed the kids,
he said, feed him every other day.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
His environment from the old world. I mean, it's like
not all, not all your kids lived. That was his.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Mindset might be. You know, he had a brother, didn't
that that didn't make it. You know, it's like a
lot of it's really a jungle law. You know, a
lot of the Fittest Survival of Fittest.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
And so Brady's is not that.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Brady's probably was an extension again of that interview, which
is if somebody's asking me my uh, asking me questions,
asking me about something that doesn't.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Happen at home.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
At home, it's that you talk to and you know
you're just in the way, and and so you kind
of receid. You know, you don't want to buck that.
So been an interview all of a sudden you can
come out. So that's probably where that began. And then
here I really felt it. I mean, I remember one
episode Bob redirected and we were very inexpensive show, and
(13:53):
you got six of us, and so we got a
director coming in.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
He's going to do.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
This scene with six of us, and you know, maybe
seven eight of us in the scene. So you three
stand there, you come up, you stand here, and we'll
do the scene like the static. So nothing organic about it.
But he's trying to get done by the end of
the day, and how else are you going to block
this thing?
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And then here's Bob read first thing in the morning.
It's a show that you know, I'm featured in and
he says, so, how do you see this blocking work?
How do you see this work? And it was like, wow,
I'm valued.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I have an idea, but no one's ever asked me
my idea to that degree before. And that's where that developed,
you know, And that probably wouldn't have happened at home
until I did it for myself at some in some
rebellious kind of way, and so it shaped me.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
It shaped me, and it gave me an idea of
how family can be cooperative.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
My mom was dead set against even believing that families could.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Be really Yeah, so it sounds like, much like myself,
you found the Brady Bunch sort of like a safe space,
a sanctuary.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, And I didn't know how safe it wasn't until
you know, it was gone.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
And then when I was an adult.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
At that point, I was sixteen, but I realized that
the space that I was left in at like at home,
it's like, I need to escape this so that I
can go make something closer to that for myself.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
That's that's a really interesting story.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
It's like, and my mom and I we'd have I mean,
it wasn't like we were close friends when she passed away,
but because we discussed it all. You know that she
had different ideas based on her experiences in life and
the hardships that she was under and the you know,
the difficulties that were day to day confronting her.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
And she did the best that she could.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
But the result of that was these reverberations were you know,
a need to create something different.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Did your mom go to work with you?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah? Since you were, she gave me every day. And
I mean, I have a brother seven years younger. I'm eleven.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Did he come who was? No?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
He's left home with my sister who's three years younger.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
So it's like, you know, she's he's been raised by
a seven year old.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Yeah, And I you know, I didn't get to witness that,
but you know, talking to my sister and you know,
you know, that's tough. And that's why when when friends say, oh,
my kid is so cute, he should be in show business,
And I said, do you realize what would happen if, like, say,
they live in Ohio and they want to come out
for pilot season again, a pilot they you know, you're.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Successful, What about the other kids? Where are you going
to live? What do you do to the family, and.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
You shouldn't me work for you know, and support your
kids and then let them do what they want.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
At eighteen.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I became emancipated when I started working. I think I
was sixteen.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
So you can't get a massipated earlier than that, right,
I think sixteen is when you first can be it.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
I believe so. And so you could drive, I could drive.
I drove myself. I went to work just like an adult,
like I didn't have my mom.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Barry got himself emancipated because for a time my mom
would be on set and his mom wouldn't, and she
would be his guardian for that day until he got emancipated.
His mom was there mostly in the first year. I
think that was the second year, because he didn't really
need or want his mom around, but he legally was
needed to have someone there looking, an adult looking after
(17:26):
him and.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Till that happened.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Did they sequester the parents away from the set.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Oh no, They were very much part of the entire program,
because True's idea was that we first he wanted you know,
I don't know how much he actually took in to
account parents when he was casting us, but I'm sure
he had some I out for that. He didn't want actors.
(17:54):
He wanted kids to kid act. So he wanted kids,
he wanted he wanted people that they were people first,
person persons first before actors. And I'm sure part of
that process and looking for that was not just what
he got from the interview in the room, but somewhere
(18:15):
along the way there must have been. But it is
tough because you're not interviewing parents, right, So how do
you know what you're getting with the parents?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Are like, So, yeah, that's a tough question. I've really
not thought about it.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
He couldn't have known too much about how the parents
worked out, and luckily it worked out. You know, we
had distinctly different kind of parents like Marine's. She lived
not too far away, but her mom couldn't drive. Her
dad was a school teacher, so and she was the youngest.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
In her family. Her brother's rolders.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
She had one brother whose special needs mom had some
eye condition tunnel vision or something.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
So you couldn't drive, We drove. We drove them.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I mean that gave me an extra couple hours every
day to be like a quasi brother some Marine growing
up in the back of a car.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
But it worked. I mean, the parents weren't the typical
None of them were the typical set parents.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Set parents, or you know, pushy kind of like this.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Was also at the stage was it was an ensemble.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Now we're at times it would just it would show
itself in defense of those things that were important to
that person, like Eve's hair. She had this incredibly long,
gorgeous hair, but to keep it like that required a
lot of brushing. Mom was constantly brushing and brushing because
it wasn't I mean again, light lightly budgeted. Wasn't like
(19:35):
we had an abundance of hair and makeup people so
that they were probably you know, giving it a couple
couple of strokes before taking care of Florence.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
It was. It was.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
It was Eve's mom constantly on her brushing right up
until right.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I have just such a vivid imagination of what that
was like. But you did, her hair looked amazing. But
that's why now we.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Know takes a lot of brushing. Well, thank god for
mom's right.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
So stage momming is important to some extent.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah, So do you feel as if you're frozen in
time when you walk around.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Today or have a lot of us to reconcile this.
You know they say about electrons, they don't really have
a place. They can be in two places at once. Yeah,
and that is kind of what happens when this occurs.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Right, we did something long ago, it still exists, it
still lives, and then I exist now, So I have
two existences.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I'm not really frozen in time, but I understand that
somebody could see me frozen at time. That's what's fun
about doing the podcast is I go back and learn
what people have thought about me and why by watching
the show.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
You know and.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I'm amazed were both are about how much we were
gaining from watching.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
It, Right, isn't that the case?
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Yeah, that we always get the same question, right, what
is your favorite show? But it dawned on me that
wasn't a question. We were answering it without regarding the
question as it was being asked. We always said why
because we have to go to why that would be
our favorite experience, not necessarily favorite show. So all of
our answers are about the experiences of doing a show. Well,
(21:16):
I mean, I'm thinking going in that my favorite shows
were those when I was older, right, because that's when
all of a sudden you're more conscious making conscious decisions,
and I watched the show. The shows are not nearly
as good as the first couple of years because the
show had a structure in those first couple of years
that kind of untethered as the show as we got older,
(21:38):
because it's power early, if you will. Its real strength
was in that you know, six to twelve, fourteen year
old kid realm. As soon as you get fifteen sixteen,
your issues are not as simple to conclude as they
are or as they can be. They're not as primary
(22:00):
like the colors on the show. The issues that we
dealt with best were very primary issues. I'm you know,
getting along, telling the truth, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Just it's it's a parable, modern parable.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
But so simple like for those of us watching it.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yes, well life for a kids should be simple. It
gets more complicated out that front door. Oh yes, so
the more reasons you know, like you don't, I mean,
if there's if there's like Vietnam was it was in parallel,
you know, I was like a year from being drafted
doing the show, and so there was all that you know,
(22:35):
tumult you know around us, and we're doing the show
already felt like it was out of time.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
And if you think about it.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
The Brady's as this kind of family was already a
throwback in the late sixties to the families of the
late you know, reminds me of leave It to Beaver,
you know, as you know, a blended leave it to
Beaver like family, and that was late fifties, you know,
and really hasn't been done.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
And I don't know if you can.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
I mean I think that they're like, I don't know
you can cycle back to that kind of that kind
of innocence again.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
You will just laugh at it.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
And that's why the movies laughed at it, because it's
like when you're an adult looking back at yourself as
a child in the ways that you thought, you laugh
at how simple things were for you, but they're purposefully simple,
like you know, the the you know, if you're ten
years old or eleven years old, I'm not sure your
parents want you watching the news of the war that's
going on, you know, and the and the body count
(23:29):
and stuff like that. Keep you in a different space
because you'll have enough time to deal with that as
you get older.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
That's the thing with kids these days now, you can't
keep them from seeing everything all at once everywhere.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Which is troublesome. Yeah, I don't know how you know. Yeah,
everything all at once is not necessarily not.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
I did well to just take my Brady Bunch, followed
by my Happy Days and then my Laverne and Shirley.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You did it naturally for yourself, yes.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yes, Well did you when you left the show? When
the show was over, how did you feel like? Did
you feel.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Well?
Speaker 4 (24:08):
I was.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Happy, at least initially, because I wanted to go to school.
I wasn't my idea.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
To be an actor, though I was getting so much
from it and very much appreciated it. I hadn't decided
on what I wanted to do with my life.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And I knew that you're only sixteen right when it
went off.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I was, yeah, halfway through eleventh grade, so I was
just turning yet seventeen. Just about seventeen, I was sixteen.
You're right, I was sixteen, but high school was only
I only had a year and a half left of
high school.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I hadn't gone to my real high school yet.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
We went to a private school tenth grade so we
could do the singing, dancing, concert stuff that I didn't
really want to do.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
But I'm part of this group and being sucked along
by it.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
And so now the show's going off, and I'm it's
like the twentieth week in going up to the second
semester of eleventh grade, and finally I get to go
to the high school that's right down the street, and
the friends in the neighborhood they go there, and I
hadn't gone yet. Brother goes there. I was big into science,
but there was no science of being taught laps.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
You know, biology and chemistry and physics.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
All the stuff that interested me were stuff that I
couldn't get unless I went back to my high school.
And luckily I got just I got out just in
time to start catching.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Up on someone else.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Did anybody ever pick on you?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Well, that happened, Well, I was. I to seventh grade
is a new school. The first season the show was.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Out, you were still in school, Rul I went.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
The only year was tenth grade when we went to private.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
I went. Every we finished.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
We start the day the monday that school got out,
and we were all in public schools.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
We were on the same system. So they did that
money that.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
They could keep so they didn't have to work you certainly.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Now and work they could work us seven hours right,
they could work us well, let's eight hours seven as
opposed to just you know four, right, because once the
school starts. On that day that the school begun, we
were in our classroom when we weren't you around the
camera or in front of the cameras. Matter of fact,
they had to invent rules, like you know, putting us
(26:12):
into school and taking us out five minutes later is
useless for school, so you have to leave us there
for at least I think it was fifteen minutes or
twenty minutes.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
And then because.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
We'd be featured, our welfare worker was just brilliant, classic
school marmish, wonderful woman, Francis Whitfield. And she was our
welfare worker and our teacher. She was accredited up through
eighth grade, so there was another teacher for us when
we got beyond eighth grade.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I want to know, like when you go out in
public and people stop you, as I'm sure they do
a million times, what goes through your.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Mind depends on what just happened, like what their interrupt
because sometimes I have no hope for humanity, like where
you have that right though, I'm with my brother who
we've always had, Like I said, a relationship that's on an.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Edge, a little competitive, right, and he.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Oh, I never never closed on that. So we go
on these same interurgers for two years and I can
he never worked.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Oh, that must have really never worked.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
And then finally said, why am I wasting my time?
Living in Woodland Hills. You had to drive into house.
I mean that's like an hour two hours, you know,
and it's like, why am I going on this? I
don't want to go anywhere.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
So he didn't have to at that point, I'm now
doing you know, by that point, just about doing the
Brady button.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Okay. So you're at lunch with your brother now as
grown man, and someone comes up to you and says.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Well, this is this is the thing about humanity my
brother and I. So somebody recognizes me. This is some
years ago, ten years ago, and then turns in are
you somebody?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
And it's like, I don't even want to look him
in the eye right now. I didn't do it. It's
not my fault. I'm not I'm not going to you know, And.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
It's like, hey, you know, what do you say to
this person?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
You know? And what do you say to your brother?
Speaker 3 (28:03):
You're not gonna say any of your brother because hopefully,
you know, he'll.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
You know, handle it.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, And it's just like I'm not But I knew
at a young age too. Why are people asking for autographs?
What are they gonna do with that?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
They're gonna he's gonna draw and it's gonna disappear forever
and there it's a handshake. It's their way of interacting
before cell phones, it was.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
It's a way up. But they don't know that.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
They're wanting to just say you've intersected my life positively,
or I liked your work.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Can I can I just say hi, thank you?
Speaker 3 (28:41):
It takes a real adult to do that, but until
not everybody ever gets to be a real adult to
handle it that way. So mostly it's just doing what
somebody else has done, which is asking for an autograph.
But you know, it's really just to interact. When I
figured that out self, want to make it so much better.
Just take the selfie because now I'm a life size collectible.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
It doesn't bug you. You're a life size collectible.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
I love that, And it's so much easier. I don't
sit down and write terrible handwriting, you know, and what's
your name?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
And how do I spell?
Speaker 1 (29:13):
That it's like it seems though, that you have such
a deep appreciation for the show and its significance in
television history and in so many people's lives.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I know this.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
I know I had a really contentious relationship with my
mom growing up that predated The Brady Bunch, and you know,
and we worked that out as adults, so we had
we had little problem as adults. We were a family
that shared exactly how we were feeling, which has a
good side and it can have a bad side. Chaotic
(29:47):
and independent, uh, can be desperate, loud. Yeah, So that
relationship wasn't something I thought was healthy, but I felt
what whatever we were doing here was it was a
depiction of it and it set me up to realize that,
(30:08):
you know, there are good things that can come from this.
Although we were derided in the press, I mean, as
a show reviewed, we're banw and you know, just.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Because that's what we were.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
There wasn't anybody reviewing from the point of view that
the show was trying to deliver on because there was
no children's programming per se. I mean, there was Disney,
but people didn't look at if Disney wasn't really trying
to provide entertainment for children at that but there wasn't.
They didn't review children's programming separately. Then you reviewed any
(30:40):
other kind of art, and with the same reviewer. It'd
be doing theater and doing television, and so we were
kind of like, what the hell is this doing on television?
Speaker 2 (30:47):
This is you know, television itself was derided as being
a entertainment below art, art.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Form below keyword. So later in life you pivoted to
business entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I pivoted right in high school.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
When I left and went into high school, it was like,
that's this is it, you know, because I was happy,
you know, just I got my I was getting my sciences,
and I'm now going to figure out what i want.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
To do with the rest of my life. And I
didn't know that I had a learning disable.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I was learning disabled, you know, kind of got buried
in all that other stuff they had. This dyslexia and
I had would turn out to be add but I
had a real difficult time with the subjects I didn't
care about, you know, And I then went off to
UCLA and realized that I was going to get buried.
I had no problem in any of the sciences, but
as soon as I went into litt in English and
(31:39):
then asked.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
I was going to get buried, and it's like, how
am I going to finish this?
Speaker 4 (31:41):
And that?
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Right at that same time, here comes the entertainment industry
back asking me to do something I don't want to do,
which is music.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
But I said yes to it, and that was.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
The Variety Show because I realized as well, half my
friends at UCLA we're North campus, you know, studying theater
and cinema, and it's like I'm and I'm just dropping that,
and whatever whatever advantage I had in that industry, I'm
just disregarding as perhaps I need to leverage that, maybe
I need to look at that again. So I use
(32:10):
that as the entree to get back into it, and
that would last for a number of years, and then
I found myself just drifting into into the realm of
computers when you know.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Just naturally just got.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Attracted to him and ended up in a career in
the computer industry for twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
So when the cast came back together to do the
renovation show for the house on HDTV, how was that?
Would you? Was that a good?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah? Well, well look at it was come.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Back together the gang was back together.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
It was just odd the way that it all came We,
like everybody Lancepass included, read that the house was for sale,
it was in the USA today, and then a few
days later, agents are getting contacted about this house that
HGTV or Discovery body.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I wanted to know if we could meet with them.
It's like, okay, we had no idea really what this
was about.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
What it was for them to tell us that they
had bought the house and that they were looking at
doing something with it, and then we told them about.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
The history of the house and they didn't even know.
They had no idea.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
It was just because it came up on the market
and somebody was reading it during a production meeting or
some development meeting. We should buy the Brainy House, and
then somebody said, yeah, we should, And within two days.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
They're making it off our house. They didn't know it's
the fiftieth anniversary. It all came to just kind of
came together.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
It's like, well, that's a present to us, you know,
if they're going to have us involved, I don't know
what it's going to be, but hey, you know, making
that doing something at the house is like a way
to acknowledge the.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Fiftieth anniversary, and it turned out to be much.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
More than that, and in a way to you know,
resurrect this eleventh cast member.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Right, I love that. Well, speaking of the eleventh cast member,
we've got to bring in Dina Treyhan, who is the
owner of this beautiful, iconic home.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
How are you?
Speaker 4 (34:00):
I'm well? Thank you? How are you?
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I'm good? I need to know why you bought this house.
Were you a fan of the show?
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Well, I watched it every day after school, yes, growing up.
So when I heard the house was for sale, I
just knew I had to buy it. I did not
know why. I knew I wanted nothing to happen to it.
I didn't want it to get torn down or anything
like that. What I didn't know is what I was
going to do with it.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
HGTV.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
I bought it from them, so they had already done
the addition and made it just like the show. So
what I did, I just added a bunch of things.
I've added over three hundred things I've lost count from
the show, like Kitty carry all.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
I saw her upstairs, she's sleeping.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Right, and the cars, and you know, so I did
I did a lot that way, and I turned the
garage into the car port just like they had without
a permit. So I got a violation.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Oh no, that didn't make the news good.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
So what Tina has would to all of us. Obviously,
it's a museum, it's a you can't make it.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
No.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
First of all, I heard a rumor that you have
slept in this home. Have you slept over?
Speaker 4 (35:12):
I have a few of my friends have come out
to LA and they wanted to sleep in the house.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Whose room did you sleep?
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Well? They slept in Carol and Mike's and I slept
in the girls room.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Can I have a sleepover with you?
Speaker 4 (35:26):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Amy, and I will be right over You. Guys are
having a really incredible event here, so can you tell
me about that.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
Yes, we partnered with No Kid Hungry and we're doing
a sweepstakes where five people and they each get to
bring a guest get round trip airfare, hotels, ground transportation
and meals. And but what's going on at the house.
It's we're calling it the Brady Brunch, So you have
brunch with Brady cast members. And yes, we are serving
(35:56):
also pork chops and apple sauce.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Wi.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Yeah, buy someone dressed like Alice.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Oh my gosh, are you going to be here?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
I didn't know about the Alice part. I yes, I
plan to be here.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
So we don't know the date that it's going to be,
but it's based on professional availability. I will work, however,
I as hard as I can to make certain that
I am one of those. I am local so I
don't have to be flown out. I know that Barry
has shown interest in Ev has shown interest in Mike
has shown interest, and whether or not they can be
here on the date that is selected will have to
(36:29):
be determined.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
But they'll be a Brady.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Here, a Brady at least you at least.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Okay, that's enough for me.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Well, and I'll take I'll bring my version of Tiger.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Before I let both of you go, I'd like to
ask you both, what was your last I choose me moment?
What was the last time you choose yourself?
Speaker 2 (36:49):
It's endless.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
I choose me all the time. I think more important
for me is my first I choose me. And that's
when we were doing the singing and dancing. We were
literally doing concerts for our albums, and I hated it
and I couldn't sink, and I thought we shouldn't be
doing it, or this one shouldn't be doing it. And
I'm my mom was like the business manager of the
(37:12):
be She was kind of the the she put it together,
It's like.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
You and I'm not doing I got no.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Musical I should be kept as far away from a
microphone as possible.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
And I just covetched a lot.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
And she finally said, well, if you don't want to
do it, you should quit.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I go, I will so well. You got to write
a letter of raggedy. I wrote two sentences. I quit.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
And that was the beginning of me doing things for
me because I didn't this industry. You end up getting
caught up and doing stuff that others make me feel
you have to do. And I realized, no, no, if
you're gonna you got to.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Do what's right for you.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I love that so much.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
That was it. That was at seven sixteen.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
That's so early. That's great. Good for you. So, Tina,
what was your last I Choose me moment?
Speaker 4 (38:02):
My last I choose me moment was when I bought
this house because so many people were like, what are
you going to do with it? Why are you buying
the house? And some days I did question, wait, why
am I buying the house? But I chose me, and
I bought the house.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
And didn't you get a response recently from somebody who
saw that you were running the sweepstakes and they had
something positive to say to you. Some member of the family.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Yes, oh my gosh, yes, my daughter's father, his mother.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
That's getting your ex mother in law.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Yes, yes, yes, sorry, she was one of the people
that thought I was nuts.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
As the mother in law did exactly.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
So after she saw the Today Show, she sent me
and I have two very nice text messages that said,
oh my gosh, I thought you were nuts, and now
I see all the good you're doing because we've done
other charity things here at the house. So she was
proud of me, she said, was a big deal.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
You chose you in buying the house, but really it
was a choice for other people too. Yes, how do
people get in on this sweepstakes?
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Oh so you enter at the Brady Experience dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Okay, you heard it, hear people straight from the Brady House.
You can come here too. Thank you for being You
can have your own just like it. It is a
trip that was fun, getting to live out one of
my childhood dreams today, Oh my gosh. I want to
thank Chris and Tina for being a part of it,
(39:34):
and we'll be sure to put all of the info
in our show notes for how to enter that incredible
brunch they are hosting. I think I'm going to enter myself.
As we continue to choose ourselves each week, I want
to encourage you this week to tap into your own
childhood feel good memories. What did you love as a kid,
A certain kind of food or a song, a type
(39:57):
of music, a specific board game. There are things from
our childhoods that still bring us joy to this day
as adults, and sometimes it's fun to act like a kid.
So this week, take some time to relive your own
childhood memories for a little bit and see how much
fun you have doing it. Thanks for listening to I
Choose Me. You can check out all of our social
(40:18):
links in our show notes. Make sure to rate and
review the podcast, and use the hashtag I Choose Me
anytime you feel like it. I'll be right here next week.
I hope you choose to be here too.
Host
Jennie Garth
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